Greek Getaway - I
The journey started from Adelaide and we knew it was going to be a long, long one, in and out of aeroplanes, touching unknown lands, meeting unseen people, learning unspoken languages, yet a much looked forward to vacation. We flew from Adelaide to Melbourne (our first hop) to catch our next flight to Dubai, which was a 14 hour long one. Who ever thought you could cross half the earth in just about half a day and still be able to catch up with a few “Wannasee” movies!
We arrived in Dubai early morning their time and were surprised to see all the action in the Airport at that hour. Most people looked Indian-ish, and some had the typical Kerala faces. I was shocked at the number of people working inside a few closed rooms (marked as EXITs for some reason). I guess they were janitors waiting to clean the already shining tiles or the golden railings in case somebody dirtied them. They even spoke a language I had heard of – Malayalam. I didn’t believe when people told me about the number of Keralites in Dubai until I really saw it. The other funny thing was the local Arabs treated us Indians as though we were untouchables. Wonder what problem they have with us poor souls.
Our next flight to Athens was a short one compared to the Melbourne – Dubai one. The Athens Airport was nothing too special, in fact looked small for a city that once hosted Olympics. The air outside was cool, but the sky seemed hazy. We couldn’t see beyond a certain distance and the city being really far away, we could hardly make out anything. We took the evening flight to Santorini and hoped that we would make it in time for the much spoken about sunset. Unforutnately, since it was still Spring, the Sun decided to set a little earlier than we would have liked, yet the city looked beautiful. Our hotel faced the Aegean Sea, so we thought we could get a good sunrise even if we missed the sunset. But, it looked like the Santorini Sun had something against us. The next morning was cloudy and the Sun didn’t show up for a long while, almost made us feel sad about the great expectations we had over Santorini.
Luckily, once we finished breakfast, the clouds had cleared and we were on our way to the cruise. The first stop was at the active volcanic island of Kameni. I didn’t think the lava rocks would be very interesting to see, but the island took me by surprise. I expected a black, boring place emanating sulphur fumes, but in return got a colourful island with some shrubs and flowers alongwith the lava rocks and the sulphur fumes. The second stop was at a hot spring. I guess the time was not right, since the people that jumped into the water were shivering rather than sweating!
After that we stopped at another small island for lunch, where the only option for me was to have fries (as unhealthy it could be, since it was my only choice, I was not complaining) and Greek salad. The last stop was at Oia, the most beautiful place in Greece for me. We had to climb 250 steps to get to it, but that really paid off. The town had a character of its own and the streets narrow as they may be had colourful shops and a good view of the sea. The more we walked those streets, the more we fell in love with Santorini. But alas, our trip was really packed and did not allow us to stay a few more days in this heavenly place. We had to pack our bags and leave the next morning. That was an event by itself. We had set our alarm on the mobile to ring at 5:30 a.m. without checking the day/date. The alarm didn’t go and at 6:00 a.m. while it was still a deep sleep time, we heard bangs on our door. The driver of our Airport transfer van was waiting for us to join his gang of transfer people. Some of them were fast asleep and the ones that were awake gave us an exasperated look as though we had committed a sin never done before. We had to complete our morning chores at the Santorini Airport and that was pretty unusual for us. Later, on investigating why the alarm had not set off, we found that the mobile phone had 2 different settings for weekdays and weekends. We had set the alarm for a weekday, whereas it was a Saturday we had to be woken up on. Damn these electronic gadgets, how unreliable can they get!!! Oh well! There should be someone whom we can blame ;-)
We arrived in Dubai early morning their time and were surprised to see all the action in the Airport at that hour. Most people looked Indian-ish, and some had the typical Kerala faces. I was shocked at the number of people working inside a few closed rooms (marked as EXITs for some reason). I guess they were janitors waiting to clean the already shining tiles or the golden railings in case somebody dirtied them. They even spoke a language I had heard of – Malayalam. I didn’t believe when people told me about the number of Keralites in Dubai until I really saw it. The other funny thing was the local Arabs treated us Indians as though we were untouchables. Wonder what problem they have with us poor souls.
Our next flight to Athens was a short one compared to the Melbourne – Dubai one. The Athens Airport was nothing too special, in fact looked small for a city that once hosted Olympics. The air outside was cool, but the sky seemed hazy. We couldn’t see beyond a certain distance and the city being really far away, we could hardly make out anything. We took the evening flight to Santorini and hoped that we would make it in time for the much spoken about sunset. Unforutnately, since it was still Spring, the Sun decided to set a little earlier than we would have liked, yet the city looked beautiful. Our hotel faced the Aegean Sea, so we thought we could get a good sunrise even if we missed the sunset. But, it looked like the Santorini Sun had something against us. The next morning was cloudy and the Sun didn’t show up for a long while, almost made us feel sad about the great expectations we had over Santorini.
Luckily, once we finished breakfast, the clouds had cleared and we were on our way to the cruise. The first stop was at the active volcanic island of Kameni. I didn’t think the lava rocks would be very interesting to see, but the island took me by surprise. I expected a black, boring place emanating sulphur fumes, but in return got a colourful island with some shrubs and flowers alongwith the lava rocks and the sulphur fumes. The second stop was at a hot spring. I guess the time was not right, since the people that jumped into the water were shivering rather than sweating!
After that we stopped at another small island for lunch, where the only option for me was to have fries (as unhealthy it could be, since it was my only choice, I was not complaining) and Greek salad. The last stop was at Oia, the most beautiful place in Greece for me. We had to climb 250 steps to get to it, but that really paid off. The town had a character of its own and the streets narrow as they may be had colourful shops and a good view of the sea. The more we walked those streets, the more we fell in love with Santorini. But alas, our trip was really packed and did not allow us to stay a few more days in this heavenly place. We had to pack our bags and leave the next morning. That was an event by itself. We had set our alarm on the mobile to ring at 5:30 a.m. without checking the day/date. The alarm didn’t go and at 6:00 a.m. while it was still a deep sleep time, we heard bangs on our door. The driver of our Airport transfer van was waiting for us to join his gang of transfer people. Some of them were fast asleep and the ones that were awake gave us an exasperated look as though we had committed a sin never done before. We had to complete our morning chores at the Santorini Airport and that was pretty unusual for us. Later, on investigating why the alarm had not set off, we found that the mobile phone had 2 different settings for weekdays and weekends. We had set the alarm for a weekday, whereas it was a Saturday we had to be woken up on. Damn these electronic gadgets, how unreliable can they get!!! Oh well! There should be someone whom we can blame ;-)
Now, don't you feel like you need a holiday :-)
posted by Ace of Space at
6/01/2007 04:32:00 PM
1 Comments:
It was a good trip and esp Oia was mind blowing like u I too wish we had more time there. The morning alarm episode sounds funny now but was pretty scary then :-).
By
Babs, at 6/04/2007 12:31 PM
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